|
Scyphate
Scyphate is a term frequently used in numismatics to refer to the concave or "cup-shaped" Byzantine coins of the 11th–14th centuries. This usage emerged in the premodern era and was solidified by scholars of the 19th century, when the term , attested in south Italian documents of the 11th and 12th centuries, was erroneously interpreted as deriving from the Greek word (, 'cup'). In reality, the term probably derives from the Arabic word , 'edge, rim', and refers to the distinctive and conspicuous border of the early gold coins. Due to this misunderstanding, the term "scyphate" has been widely applied to the concave gold, silver, and copper coins of the late Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ... and the foreign issues imitating it. These coins are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger II Of Sicily
Roger II or Roger the Great (, , Greek language, Greek: Ρογέριος; 22 December 1095 – 26 February 1154) was King of Kingdom of Sicily, Sicily and Kingdom of Africa, Africa, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon, Count of Sicily, Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, then King of Sicily in 1130 and Ifriqiya#Norman kings of the Kingdom of Africa (Ifriqiya), King of Africa in 1148. Background By 999, Normans, Norman adventurers had arrived in southern Italy. By 1016, they were involved in the complex local politics, where Lombards were fighting against the Byzantine Empire. As mercenaries they fought the enemies of the Italian city-states, sometimes fighting for the Byzantines and sometimes against them, but in the following century they gradually became the rulers of the major polities south of Rome. Roger I ruled the County of Sicily at the time of the birth of his youngest son, Roger, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group 11 element, and one of the noble metals. It is one of the least reactivity (chemistry), reactive chemical elements, being the second-lowest in the reactivity series. It is solid under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native state (metallurgy), native state), as gold nugget, nuggets or grains, in rock (geology), rocks, vein (geology), veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as in electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals, and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange good (economics), goods. The earliest forms of money used by people are categorised by collectors as "odd and curious", but the use of other goods in barter exchange is excluded, even where used as a circulating currency (e.g., cigarettes or instant noodles in prison). As an example, the Kyrgyz people used horses as the principal currency unit, and gave small change in sheepskin, lambskins; the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horses are not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as Cowry, cowry shells, precious metals, Cocoa beans#History, cocoa beans, Rai stones, large stones, and Gemstone, gems. Etymology Firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concave
Concave or concavity may refer to: Science and technology * Concave lens * Concave mirror Mathematics * Concave function, the negative of a convex function * Concave polygon A simple polygon that is not convex is called concave, non-convex or reentrant. A concave polygon will always have at least one reflex interior angle—that is, an angle with a measure that is between 180° degrees and 360° degrees exclusive. ..., a polygon which is not convex * Concave set * The concavity of a function, determined by its second derivative See also * {{disambiguation, math ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Coins
Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: gold solidi and hyperpyra and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the 15th century, the currency was issued only in debased silver stavrata and minor copper coins with no gold issue. The Byzantine Empire established and operated several mints throughout its history. Aside from the main metropolitan mint in the capital, Constantinople, a varying number of provincial mints were also established in other urban centres, especially during the 6th century. Most provincial mints except for Syracuse were closed or lost to Arab Muslim invasions in the Mediterranean Region by the mid-7th century onwards. After the loss of Syracuse in 878, Constantinople became the sole mint for gold and silver coinage until the late 11th century, when major provincial mints began to re-appear. Many mints, both imperial and, as the Byzantine Empire fragmented, belong ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Italy
Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or culture of the Historical region, historical and cultural region that was once politically under the administration of the former Kingdoms of Kingdom of Naples, Naples and Kingdom of Sicily, Sicily (officially denominated as one entity and , i.e. "Kingdom of Sicily on the other side of Strait of Messina, the Strait" and "across the Strait") and which later shared a common organization into Italy's largest List of historical states of Italy, pre-unitarian state, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The island of Sardinia, which was not part of the aforementioned polity and had been under the rule of the Alps, Alpine House of Savoy, which would eventually annex the Bourbons' southern Italian kingdom altogether, is nonetheless often subsumed into the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, Caucasus, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the list of languages by first written accounts, longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon. Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as ( "the eloquent Arabic") or simply ' (). Arabic is the List of languages by the number of countries in which they are recognized as an official language, third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations, and the Sacred language, liturgical language of Islam. Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Histamenon
''Histamenon'' (, ''histámenon [nómisma]'' ) was the name given to the gold Byzantine Empire, Byzantine ''solidus (coin), solidus'' when the slightly lighter ''tetarteron'' was introduced in the 960s. To distinguish the two, the ''histamenon'' was changed in form from the original ''solidus'', becoming wider and thinner, as well as concave (scyphate) in form. Later usually shortened to ''stamenon'' (), it was discontinued after 1092. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the name ''stamenon'' came to be applied to the concave billon (alloy), billon and copper ''trachy (currency), trachea'' coins. Establishment Ever since Emperor Constantine I () introduced it in 309, the Byzantine Empire's main coinage had been the high-quality ''solidus (coin), solidus'' or ''nomisma'', which had remained standard in weight (4.55 grams) and gold content (24 Carat (purity), carats) through the centuries. Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (), however, introduced a new coin, the ''[nomisma] tetarte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. Silver is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native metal, native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc Refining (metallurgy), refining. Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes bimetallism, alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is typically measured on a per-mille basis; a 94%-pure alloy is described as "0.940 fine". As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had an enduring role in most human cultures. Other than in currency and as an in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable, unalloyed metallic form. This means that copper is a native metal. This led to very early human use in several regions, from . Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, ; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, ; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th centuryAD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'. During the early centuries of the Roman Empire, the western provinces were Romanization (cultural), Latinised, but the eastern parts kept their Hellenistic culture. Constantine the Great, Constantine I () legalised Christianity and moved the capital to Constantinople. Theodosius I, Theodosius I () made Christianity the state religion and Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use. The empire adopted a defensive strategy and, throughout its remaining history, expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
